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Wednesday, July 5, 2017

The events that led to this unexpected attack by a mob of Muslim youth,
and the massive conflagration it ignited to last over several days,
constitute a tragic story which must be looked at in detail because it
illustrates several features of thematic relevance to the main objective
of the present study. My reconstruction of this story is presented as
an addendum to this essay (Annexure 1).

The overall impressions conveyed by that story could be summed up as follows:

(a) There is no doubt that the BBS meeting and Ven. Gnānasāra's presence
and his public utterances were potentially inflammatory. (Note that the
injured Ven. Ayagama Samitha, the victim of the attack by several
Muslim youth on 12 June had been brought to the stage, his injuries duly
bandaged).

(b) However, it should not be forgotten that prior to the riot on 15
June there was a build-up of explosive communal tensions in the Dharga
Town area at least from about the second week of that month (Appendix 1)
warranting police action, both when serious complaints were lodged
regarding a paedophilic rape committed on a Sinhalese child by a Muslim
trader (8 June) and on the assault suffered by Ven. Samitha (12 June),
as well as when representatives of the Muslim community conveyed to the
police their fear about a possible outbreak of mob violence in the area.
Whatever justification the police might have had for their inaction,
there were undercurrents of suspicion among the Sinhalese that the
police were in the pay of the Muslims business community.

(c) The large influx of people to the BBS meeting venue is likely to
have been a result of malevolent rumour mongering and, of course, the
undeniable entertainment value of the BBS leader (Didn't some of us in
our youth go all the way to enjoy the 'May Day' performances especially
by the inimitable scholar-legal luminary-pioneer Marxist, Dr. Colvin R.
de Silva in the Trotskyite "extra-parliamentary mode of capturing state
power" in vogue at that time, roaring "gahapalla" (attack), his
silhouette pointing at the old parliament complex against the crimson
sunset over Galle Face green.

(d) On the 15th eve senior police officers were reluctant to exercise
force to prevent signs of potential violence. There was no immediate
action taken by them to stop the stoning. They preferred instead to
attempt pacifying the more agitated persons in the crowds, realising no
doubt that their interventions were being recorded by the media and the
users of 'smart phones'.

(e) Thus, the offensives in Aluthgama were very definitely not one
sided. People on both sides engaged in, and suffered from, the violence –
with more Muslims than Buddhists among the victims in the post-riot
stock-taking of overall damage. Although later records referred to
death-counts of up to about 8 Muslims and a Buddhist monk, no such
claims were made in the course of many recorded random interviews.

(f) "Burning of a section of the Aluthgama town" is a highly exaggerated
and unwarranted description of this sad episode, no different from the
type of hyperbole often employed by Gnānasāra Thero in his public
utterances, unless one were to argue, like school boys sometimes do,
that even a lamp-post could be considered a section of a town.

(g) On several occasions certain Buddhist community leaders of the area
joined their Muslim counterparts in appealing for calm and peace while
standing amidst fairly large gatherings that appeared to endorse what
they said. This conveys an impression that goes completely against an
article published by the 'Centre for Policy Alternatives' (presumably to
commemorate the third anniversary of the riot) according to which there
is absolutely no hope for ethnic reconciliation in Aluthgama.

Emerging Buddhist-Muslim Rivalry

in Sri Lanka?

A reappraisal of

evidence and claims

Part 2

There is no dearth of writings that make the claim of Muslims in Sri
Lanka being a minority that has, for long, suffered discrimination and
harassment and, in the more recent past, been the target of
"Islamophobic" persecution by the Buddhists. The more refined among
these are some of the 'features' authored by the inimitable Izeth
Hussain (ex-diplomat and regular columnist), hitting hard all round the
wicket, as it were, often with easy elegance, and always, despite the
pretence at intellectual detachment, with passionate commitment to his
team's victory. There is, of course, nothing wrong in that, except his
occasionally getting caught at silly point.

Professor John Holt's keynote address I referred to at the outset does
not stand alone as an elevation of this pernicious claim to the plane of
scholarly research. Among the others I have read, there are (a) the
ICES and Law and Society studies (referred to earlier)iii which I think
are the best of their kind, (b) Zuhair, 2016iv which, in my assessment,
would have been excellent had the author matched its elegant style with
prejudice-free substance; and (c) a monograph by Dr. Ameer Ali, one of
my former faculty colleagues now living in Australia, titled 'Four Waves
of Muslim-Phobia in Sri Lanka: c.1880–2009', published almost at the
same time as Holt's study, a brief comment on which is presented below.

In Ameer Ali's analysis of the "fourth wave" (post-2009) – that of the
earlier "waves" are no more than an exercise in re-inventing the wheel –
lacks the sedate, persuasive approach typical of John Holt. Apart from
the invective, there are several misconstrued references by Ali to
several Buddhist outrages not referred to by John. These include "the
destruction of a 400-years old Muslim shrine at Anuradhapura" (a
mind-boggling archaeological discovery, according to a veteran historian
whom I have consulted)v, prefaced by a tirade which accuses Rajapaksa
of "…benevolently tolerating, if not openly supporting, … a vicious
campaign to terrorise the Muslims, destroy their economy and demonize
Islam through acts of intimidation, insult, incendiarism, and outright
thuggery by ultranationalist organizations like the BBS, its surrogate
parent JHU and the Sinhala Rāvaya", and the presidential neglect to a
mindset of "triumphalism and malevolence" towards the minority
communities after the victory over the LTTE in 2009. Does Ali
demonstrate more than all else that the 'key' to understanding the real
nature of this entire conflict is to realize that the honourable don Ali
is as eloquent in his lingo as the venerable monk Gnānasāra is in his,
and that such eloquence in the dissemination of half-truths and
falsehood has much the same destabilising impact – that of rousing the
rabble. Surely, the failure of the government at that time to curtail
Buddhist megalomaniacs is, in terms of realpolitik, comparable to the
failure of earlier regimes to tame the 'Tiger' megalomaniac for well
over two decades; and, moreover, those holding the reins of office in
Colombo have always, in both war as well as peace, been in desperate
need of at least a segment of Muslim electoral support and goodwill.
What is this psychoanalytical tripe about a "triumphalist mindset"? So,
let's move out of the type of garbage replete with ethnic prejudices,
and focus in this part of the article on the issues raised soberly by
Professor Holt.

2.1. John Holt's evidence for a rising tide of Buddhist hostilities

In addition to stating that there were over "150 documented
perpetrations by Buddhists against Muslims" from early 2013 to
mid-2014,vi Professor Holt has presented a short list of such episodes
(reproduced below) as concrete evidence to substantiate the assertion of
an intensifying trend. It seems reasonable to assume that, except for
its first item, the others stand prominent among the "documented
perpetrations" of the 18-month period preceding the ICES conference of
2014. Thus, going solely by this set of information, I would have no
hesitation to conclude that, in comparison to the previous 12-year
spell, there certainly was a calamitous 'plateau' distinct from about
2012, provided I could obtain information that helps me to understand
whether "a BBS proposal" or a "Rāvanā Balakāya protest march", or the
remaining 140 or so of "documented (but unspecified) perpetrations" are
comparable as acts of Buddhist hostility towards the Muslims to, say,
the Aluthgama conflagration or the Dambulla demolition or the
Mahiyangana desecration that are in his list.

(a) riot in the township of Mawanella

(b) removal of the mosque at Dambulla in response to Sinhala-Buddhist mob demands in 2012

(c) BBS campaign against the production of Halal food (2013-14)

(d) BBS proposal to ban the burka (2014)

(e) ‘Ravana Balaya’ (sic.) protest march (2013)

(f) desecration of a mosque in Mahiyangana (2013)

(g) attack by a Buddhist mob on Muslims in prayer at a newly constructed mosque in Grandpass, Colombo (2014)

(h) Aluthgama-Dhargar Town clash (2014).

(a) Mawanella Riot

The assertion that "scores of Muslim businesses were burnt out" in the
Mawanella riot is a gross exaggeration made in whatever source John has
relied upon. I had an unusual opportunity (courtesy of a senior police
officer - a former student) of seeing the extent of the damage soon
after the rioting had been brought under effective control, but before
curfew was lifted, when I observed about twenty-five shops and houses
bordering the Kandy-Colombo highway and in the bus-stand venue belonging
to Muslims and Sinhalese that had suffered various extents of damage
during the riot (it occurred in May 2001 and not in 1999 as John's
informant appears to have said). There was, at this time, a rising tide
of electoral rivalry (the excessively turbulent presidential election in
1999, and the parliamentary elections that produced 'hung' legislatures
in 2000 and 2001) in many parts of the country, especially in
localities such as Mawanella where UNP and SLFP muscle-power was (as it
still is) equally matched. In any event, the riot had hardly anything to
do with Buddhist militancy. Reproduced below is a reference to an
aspect of its wider context in an article I wrote at that time to the
Delhi-based South Asia Intelligence Review.

"In the longer term the Muslim fears of becoming a beleaguered minority
in the entire country could have been reinforced by several brief,
localised Sinhalese-Muslim clashes of the recent past – in the township
of Mawanella in May 2001, and in Colombo North in October 2002. There
is, in addition, the long-standing dispute in the interior of the
Eastern Province concerning an alleged encroachment by the Muslims of
land belonging to an ancient Buddhist temple".

(b) "Removal" of a mosque in Dambulla.

Urban functions in Dambulla until about the late 1970s were represented
by no more than a small cluster of shops and primary-level government
service outlets traversed by the Kandy-Jaffna highway, its income
dependent mainly on the tertiary services the cluster provided to the
thin scatter of peasant settlements in the surrounding area and to
pilgrims visiting the historic cave-temple dating back to the
pre-Christian era. Several changes witnessed in the 1980s – foremost
among these were the opening up of 'System H' of the Mahaveli Programme
to the northwest of Dambulla, invigoration of international tourism, and
more generally, the advances in transport and travel that accompanied
'liberalisation' of the economy, and rapid population growth ̶ made it
possible for Dambulla to become one of the largest market towns located
mid-way between Sri Lanka's central highlands and the northern plains, a
pleasant stopover for visitors to the hallowed archaeological sites of
Sīgiriya, Anurādhapura and Polonnaruwa, and to emerge as the foremost
centre of wholesale trade in perishable farm products commanding a
commercial catchment extending over a large part of the island including
Greater Colombo.

The relevance of these transformations to the political disturbances in
this area stemmed mainly from the fact that the vast tracts of land
which the sacred 'Rangiri Dambulla' temple had received over the past
millennia as donations, much of it uncharted and/or uninhabited, and
acknowledged vaguely as vihāragam (temple land), acquired a sharp
upsurge of commercial value in the real-estate market. The first major
outbreak of intense political dispute rooted in this fact was the
agitation against the construction of a luxury tourist hotel overlooking
the Kandalama lake – a campaign which, according to a Reuter report,
attracted at its zenith more than 10,000 protesters (including a few
volunteers for self-immolation!), objecting to the hotel project on
grounds of its adverse ecological, social and cultural impact also
involving a "land grab" of vihāragam by a consortium of large commercial
firms. The protest fizzled out, and an elegant hotel pioneering
eco-tourism in Sri Lanka came into being, the main reason for the
former, and one of the principle beneficiaries of the latter being the
Chief Incumbent of the Dambulla temple, Ven. Ināmaluvē Sri Sumangala,
whose go-ahead for the hotel project, it was widely rumoured, was
purchased by the investors for an astronomical sum of money. The other
'give and take' transactions also provided satisfaction to all concerned
including the peasantry of the area which obtained from the investors
an undertaking that the hotel employees other than managerial cadres
will be recruited from among the local youth. A similar windfall for the
venerable monk was rumoured to have occurred when the Sri Lanka Cricket
Board acquired a large patch of land for its international stadium
constructed in the year 2000. Needless to stress, these also meant an
enormous elevation of Sri Sumangala thero's status as a Buddhist leader
in the country and a powerful folk hero of the area whom many kowtowed
and obeyed.